Paprika

Review

The novel introduces us to the main character Atsuko Chiba, a beautiful researcher and psychotehrapist working at the Institute for Psychiatric Research in Tokyo, Japan.

Her genius colleague and boyfriend Tokita has developed a portable psychotherapy device (the DC Mini) that allows therapists to infiltrate the dreams of patients, and, in the process, help them recover from their psychic ailments.

This technology is still being developed and lacks legislation. Because it is illegal to use, Atsuko treats her high-profile patients in her apartment, where some of the equipment is located. When meeting her patients, she puts on a few false freckles and a wig and calls herself “Paprika”.

Things soon start to go awry, however, after a series of the powerful dream-controller devices is stolen. She becomes aware that the technology is being used for nefarious purposes by two of her colleagues, who infiltrate the dreams of unsuspecting victims, wrecking their personalities.

Dreams and reality begin to merge with one another as a consequence of repeated use of the perilous technology, and Atsuko and her allies engage in a surreal endeavour to prevent the real world from falling apart.

Even though I had high expectations for this story, I must admit Paprika felt disappointing.

First of all, I find most characters over the top, and I can’t figure out if that was intended or not. For example, as Paprika, Atsuko invites her patients to come to her apartment where she scans their dreams. When they approach the door to her apartment, there is a metal nameplate fixed on the wall with the text Apt. 1604 CHIBA written in bold capitals.

Seriously?!?

So, Atsuko, who is allegedly one of the smartest scientists in the world (after all, she is nominated for the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine), runs an illegal research project in her apartment, which, by the way, is in the same building as her archenemy’s flat?

Even after she is under serious suspicion that she might be Paprika, she continues to bring patients into her flat. This is nothing but folly. Nowhere does Paprika attempt to explain why she is doing therapy in Atsuko’s flat; she appears to simply hope nobody will figure it out. Then later in the book she appears surprised when two of her patients realise that Paprika and Atsuko are one and the same person. Well, duh!

Atsuko’s method is also blatantly unethical. Although she claims that engaging in sex or flirting with her patients is a shortcut to their cure (!), she appears to do it for fun. For example, after treating Noda, she asks him to kiss her as she later tells her boss Shima, “[Paprika] didn’t go as far she did with you. But she did let him kiss her at the end. […] In reality, she found him rather attractive.” Did I forget to mention Noda is married with children, and Atsuko knows this?

Similarly, when she is about to have sex with Konokawa (another patient), she says “Never mind – this was just a dream. It would simply be one more secret to be shared between therapist and patient […]“. And then later adds that “She felt that this virtual sex act might be more immoral than a real sex act between a therapist and a patient who really loved each other […] Nevertheless, Paprika could continue her treatment based on erotic experiences without feeling too guilty about it. […] If Konokawa felt guilty about this method, she thought, she could always have sex with him properly after he was cured“.

Look, I wouldn’t consider these points flaws in the story if the character Atsuko had been portrayed as a rebellious psychotherapist with little scruples and integrity. But it was my impression that Atsuko was being depicted as a heroine, a virtuous scientist and respectable therapist, whose only concern is the well-fare of her patients. But, really, any actual psychotherapist would immediately demand her suspension at the knowledge of her work methods, let alone be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Another implausible character is Atsuko’s boyfriend Tokita. Here we have a genius scientist that has been developing really sophisticated devices, but who, for a strange reason, is incapable of memorising a simple instruction: add protective code to prevent unauthorised access to the devices. Dude, a simple 6-digit pin code would do the trick!

Maybe I would understand if the memory lapse had occurred with the initial prototype. But after making 6 of them?! And he just leaves them lying around with no safe-proof mechanism? Also, one DC Mini had been missing for a long time (one that Atsuko had forgotten in her pocket!), and he didn’t remember to tell Atsuko that it was missing. No, it was necessary that all of them get stolen for him to bring it up. This just strikes me as completely absurd.

To be fair, Atsuko is well aware of this when she says that Tokita “was completely incapable of such meticulous afterthought”. That might have been an understatement!

Some sections of the book were also very uncomfortable to read. For example, Atsuko professes her love for Tokita but is apparently disgusted by his appearance, and has no compunction fooling around with her patients. She makes non-professional comments such as “Interesting people have interesting dreams. Dull people only have dull ones.”. Homossexuality is seen as something perverse: for example, the only two homosexual characters are coincidentally the villains of the story; Konakawa, a high-ranking police officer, comments about the homossexual relationship that “that’s disgusting”; when a female colleague makes flattering remarks about Atsuko’s appearance, Atsuko notes “feeling slightly embarrassed at such unfettered adoration by a member of her own sex“.

And I don’t even know where to start with the rape scene. Atsuko is violently attacked in her flat by one of her colleagues, but, in the end, he is unable to carry out the rape. However, Atsuko gets really annoyed with him, not because he tried to rape her, but because he didn’t actually consummate it! The attempted rape apparently got her horny and wanting to have sex! What?!?

Finally, I felt the organisation of the book left a lot to be desired. The first part of the book is almost detached from the second part, in which the most interesting events occur. Sure, the first part introduces the characters and sets the stage for the events in the second part. However, most of the dreams that Paprika analyses in the first part are completely tangential to the main plot and bear little importance to the novel as a whole.

One a more positive note, the written language was quite accessible (at least based on the English translation). Narratives involving dreams tend to get confusing very quickly and the jumbled up nature of the dream content has the potential to turn stories into a mishmash. I feared this in Paprika, but was happy to have been proven wrong. Certainly, I expected the dreams sequences to be very weird, but the descriptions of the dream imagery and the pace at which the dream narrative evolves is very adequate in my opinion.

I also enjoyed reading Paprika’s dream interpretations of the unquestionably complex dream narratives of her patients. You can tell the author did some research, and although I found Paprika’s psychotherapy unlikely (e.g., the dream theories of Freud and Jung are antithetical, but Paprika appears to endorse both of them), her interpretations were fun to read.

Our rating

The concept of Paprika is a clever one. I do see the potential of the story and definitely congratulate the author for his fascinating imagination.

However, as outlined above, I found the book had serious flaws (e.g., incoherent characters, poor book organisation) which diminished my enthusiasm for the book. Here at Mindlybiz, Paprika gets a rating of 2 stars.

Bizarrometer

This is a tough one. The novel is divided into two parts. The first part is very accessible – there is a clear separation between the dream world and reality, which makes the story easy to follow. In part, that is due to Atsuko’s interesting therapy dynamics, interpreting dreams with her patients.

The second part of the book, however, begins to entangle dream and reality, producing a more confusing storyline. Nevertheless, the reader is never left completely lost and the author was careful to explain most dream-reality transitions as the novel progressed. Paprika gets a Bizarometer score of 3.